Friday, December 6, 2013

Okay, seriously people. This space is for bikes, ESPECIALLY when the MAX train is packed full, not luggage.

One of the 51s. This was in the early afternoon I think.

By the MAC club passing a 51

I think this was inside bus 2101 if I recall correctly. All the seats had orange around the 'cushion' area where the faded TriMet red would normally be.

Mooey Christmas. This just makes me smile. (:

Sad face on my 57 from this past Tuesday. Buses are getting dirtier every day now that temperatures refuse to breach the freezing mark meaning buses aren't getting washed at night. So the buses turn into drawing boards for their various passengers when parked at a transit center or a stop for a long period of time.

Bus 2832 surprised me on Tuesday night where someone had posted a sticker with this message.

On Wednesday night my 56 at Washington Square TC was confused. It wanted to be a line 52 to 185th/ Willow Creek TC. It was a 2800, so no surprise. It made for a good laugh at 9:15pm.

Hey guys.
In reading an AWESOME new blog (to me) I found thanks to my friend Al M, over at his Rantings blog, I remembered this blog.
I wish I wrote more here. I ride TriMet every day and have no end to the stories I've heard while on or around transit, those of you who know me know that. I regret that I don't have the time to focus much energy here.
I'm going to finally resign myself to the fact that I won't post much on this anymore in the near future. I'll be off at college next year (but most likely will remain local), so maybe I can resume some kind of more regular postings here. I don't know.
Just trying to write this here I feel my mind getting stuck and overwhelmed. It's a tough spot for me.
Later tonight if I feel really ambitious I'll post some pictures from my recent transit adventures.
But for now, stay safe out there.

Friday, April 12, 2013

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” -Martin Luther King, Jr

We all know Cameron Johnson: he is one of our better know
TriMet and OPAL activists. Tonight on twitter he spoke some words that left me
with the confirmed resolution that our TriMet activism group needs to make a
change. Here is what he wrote, condensed into a paragraph (but no words were
changed):

"Transit
blogging used to be about facing opposition with facts for the good of the
city. Now it's all a bunch of self-righteousness, personal vendettas, and
radical extremism for the sake of shock value. Frankly, it's become about the
blogs, not the issues. What good are we if we focus on being characters, on
being right, on being the hero?"

We
all know that the issues at TriMet are extensive and to make any sort of change
will take a lot, but Cameron is right here; the path that our attempt at
transit activism has gone down in the last year, even two, is a downward spiral
that needs to change. This has all become a quest for personal
achievement instead of an act to achieve change in our transit agency for
everyone in the city. If we want to pursue changes at TriMet we need to take a
new approach than we currently are.

So who are we fighting
for? What are we fighting for? Why do we even bother? I can tell you my side.

I am fighting for the public. We all deserve reliable, safe, and
effective transit--we have a right to it--and TriMet is not giving us that. Our
crew of transit geeks needs to unite and make ourselves all heard. If each
individual fights for this, but is mainly doing it for the personal achievement
gain, it just hurts our image and our message. We need to send a sharp message
to TriMet that we will not stop until we have major changes and improvements to
this deteriorating transit system and agency.

I do not want personal attacks or any synonym of that in this at
all. That has nothing to do with any of this. We are all fighting for the same
reason, right? We all want a better transit system run by a responsible transit
agency. If so, we can't let personal
feelings get in the way of it. We need to work together and show ourselves as a
strong force of many to TriMet and everyone involved in it if we want to make
any kind of change. We have to make ourselves all known and recognized by the
public and get their attention. They need to know the whole truth of TriMet and we're the ones
who all need to spread that message. The more people who know the truth are the more that will want change and be willing to fight for it alongside us.We
have to show that we are a force not to be ignored--too strong that we cannot
be ignored.

So what is the next step? If only I knew. But what I do know is
that we all need to come together and resolve to make a change to TriMet together--we
cannot each do it alone. We need to do this together. Who’s game?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

I'm coming back to this blog. It will be different from what it was back when i was posting a lot every day, but will be more focused on the issues with TriMet and have substantially less regular posts than there were before.
I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I'm going to give it another try.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

As for this not being that big of a deal? With all due respect, you watched a video in an article titled “Bicyclist prompts emergency MAX train stop in Gresham.” You knew what this video was going to show and you were watching for it. And that’s sort of like watching Titanic where you know what’s going to happen (SPOILER ALERT: The boat sinks) so it’s not a surprise when you see it. But consider this from the operator’s perspective for a moment, who didn’t know that this was going to happen at that intersection.